The Government will be asked this year to proceed with legislation formalising the Mackenzie Agreement, the result of more almost three years of negotiations to avoid continued conflict over development in the high country region.
Prepared by the Mackenzie Sustainable Futures Trust through a shared vision forum and covering the Omarama, Ohau and Mackenzie Basins, it proposes establishing, through legislation, the Mackenzie Country Trust to implement the agreement, provide funding, enter into agreements with landowners and pay them for management and other responsibilities.
Forum member Mike Neilson said the agreement had now been approved by Environment Canterbury, Mackenzie and Waitaki District Councils, the three authorities affected by proposals.
The next step was to talk with Waitaki MP Jacqui Dean and Minister of Conservation Nick Smith (who was originally involved as Minister for the Environment) about how to implement legislation recommended in the agreement.
The agreement arose after 110 resource consent applications were filed to use water in the Mackenzie and Omarama Basins in 2008 and 2009, including from three development companies for 16 dairy farms with up to 17,850 cows.
That caused to an outcry and when submissions closed on the applications, about 7000 had been received.
While many local people opposed the dairy developments, others were upset and angry about outsiders from as far away as Auckland trying to dictate the area's future.
That led to a two-day Mackenzie Country Symposium in Twizel in November 2010, organised by the Environmental Defence Society, bringing together local people and outside groups and individuals involved in the controversy of land and water development.
It was an attempt to get consensus on a way forward that would allow development but at the same time protect the area.
From that, the Mackenzie Sustainable Futures Trust was set up by Mrs Dean in January 2011. That led to the Mackenzie Agreement, made public in May.
The agreement is a shared vision for resolving land-use issues in the Mackenzie, Ohau and Omarama basins aimed at a good balance between and for all signatories.
Community-based groups as diverse as irrigators, mountaineers, tourism operators, farming representatives, protection societies, Fish and Game, Forest and Bird, salmon farmers, environmentalists and others worked together to produce it.
A total of 22 organisations signed up to the agreement, which would develop a new ''property to property'' approach to managing future development of 269,000ha of land in the Ohau, Mackenzie and Omarama basins.
Under it, up to 100,000ha might eventually be set aside for protection in the Mackenzie, Ohau and Omarama Basins in the trade-off for more irrigation and tourism.
Up to $3.7 million a year from the Government, donations or sponsorship is needed to implement it.
